Drabble Dump (Animorphs, Doctor Who, Firefly, Bones)
Below the cut.
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Jake
Spoilers: None, really
Rating: PG
Prompt: Traps: any, any, “Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them -- this is of the essence of leadership.”
He can see why they picked him, really. He was the only logical, rational, possible choice. Rachel would lead the team into battle without a second thought, charging into even more certain death than he did. Marco would be the opposite, planning too much or just not bothering to go at all, and Cassie would moralize and argue about ethics and they would never get anywhere, and it would kill her, he knows. Ax is a soldier but not a leader, and Tobias, well, once he came into his own, near the end of the war, maybe he could have pulled it off, but at the beginning he would have been too unsure, too willing to let the others make the decisions and unable to stop them squabbling.
Trapped, trapped in decisions and peacemaking, oh God he can't do it.
There's something about Jake - something that the others see within hours of the crash, but something that it takes him three years to see for himself. Something that allows him to utilize the best traits of each of them and cancel out the rest. Hell, he's making it all up as he goes along but he's good at it.
Never wanted this and so many dead, all his fault.
He can see why they made him the leader of their little band. He just isn't sure he'll ever forgive them for it.
*
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Wash/Zoe
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Prompt: Firefly, Zoe/Wash, first date
He'd asked her out a full dozen times. She'd only said no for the first eleven. Progress.
He did his research and landed the Serenity in a port with a nice restaurant. He'd been saving up his pay for months, now. As long as they didn't order expensive wine he should be able to afford it.
Instead they ended up in a shootout with a group of men she had pissed off on her last visit. He got blood on his suit and she tore her dress. It wasn't the romantic evening he was hoping for, but she did kiss him in the kitchen while they reheated leftovers for dinner. It was the best first date he'd ever had.
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Rachel
Spoilers: #54
Rating: PG
Prompt: Author’s choice, any, they’ll never see the likes of you again.
Born December 6, 1985, Rachel Berenson was known as the most aggressive of the Animorphs. Her most frequent morph was a grizzly bear. Tragically, she died during the final battle in an attempt to stop the last of the Yeerk Threat from escaping.
That's all it says. Three years in the fight, boiled down into three sentences in a history textbook for bored kids to doodle on in class. You deserve more. You deserve to be remembered. There's one photograph, one of the only ones that survived, of you standing in front of a pretty mountain with a fake smile plastered to your face for the camera. It's labeled Rachel Berenson, 1985-2001 and someone's drawn in a little handlebar mustache with a Sharpie.
A few years and you're as forgotten as a fashion trend from last decade. When people talk about the Animorphs they say Jake, Marco, Cassie, the bird, the alien, and the blonde chick. You're like an afterthought, only stuck on at the end when they count the list off on their fingers and realize they've forgotten one.
You watch as your memorial statue, at first crowded with a steady stream of grateful worshippers that trickled down to a shrinking pool of sunburned tourists with clicking cameras and crumpled brochures, is now abandoned save for the occasional field trip by a harried teacher and kids packed onto a yellow school bus, all happy to get out of class for the day. They don't care about you, or your sacrifices. You used to be one of them, but it's hard to remember back that far, even though it's not that far back at all.
You can remember visiting the statue dedicated to the general of a war you don't know the name of. It's bronze, gleaming in the sun, and several times life size. He's perched on a horse and you and a friend laugh at the expression on his face. When the teacher shepherds a group of kids off to the restroom, you climb up and shimmy into the saddle behind him. The metal is hot through your jeans and you tell Cassie to dare you to climb up higher. She refuses but you do it anyway, using the statue's bronze musket to give yourself a boost onto his shoulders where you stand, unsupported, the breeze blowing through your hair. You laugh, and don't waver, even when the teacher comes back and yells at you.
And now you're forgotten, another statue to climb on. They'll never see the likes of you again, but they don't know that.
But, you think, watching a girl on a field trip scaling the sun-baked belly of your grizzly statue, maybe someone else can come close.
*
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: River, Amy
SPOILERS: None
Rating: G
Prompt: Doctor Who, River Song & Amy, A cup of tea at the end of the universe
"Hold down that lever."
"Which one, this one?"
"No, two left and one up. Green."
"Can I let go now?"
"Not just yet . . . now."
"Where are we?"
"The end."
"The end of what?"
"The end of the universe."
"How does it end?"
"That's a spoiler. But I've heard they make excellent tea. Cream?"
"Just a sugar, thanks."
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Sara
Spoilers: #54
Rating: low PG-13 for psychological difficulties
Prompt: Lies: Author's choice; author's choice; s/he chooses to believe the lies, because at least they are beautiful.
Sara has seen Death.
Her mother and Jordan have tried to shield her eyes but oh, she has seen Death. She has seen her older sister turn into a bear and create Death. She has seen seven-foot monsters with blades longer than her arms and she has seen giant centipedes with ray guns. She has heard the cries of people who were too far gone to know that they were free of the slug in their heads. Who have forgotten how to move, how to speak, how to think for themselves.
So she knows there is Death. And she knows there is Hell, because her sister has been there. Her sister has been to Hell and has returned, and all of her sister's friends. If it's possible to return from Hell, than it's possible to return from anywhere. It's possible to return from Death.
So while her mother and her father and Jordan grieve for the dead girl in the urn, she remains silent, because her sister has been to Hell and her sister has returned from Hell and her sister can return from Death. Her sister will come back, some day. Sara knows. Sara knows.
And the lies are beautiful.
*
Fandom: Bones
Characters: Brennan(/Booth)
Spoilers: Most of s2 and s3, I think?
Rating: PG
Prompt: Lies: Any, Any, "It's the little lies we tell ourselves that keep us all sane."
My father is being tried for murder, but I can compartmentalize.
For someone who needs the truth, she tells herself far too many lies. White lies, just little ones. She tells them to other people first, but ends up insisting her honesty so vehemently that she begins to believe them herself.
I let Sully go because he wasn't right for me and because I love my work.
Sometimes other people initiate the lies. Someone says something that that she can ignore for the moment but it sticks in her mind, grows and flourishes and keeps her awake at night when she usually isn't sleeping anyway.
I'm a cold fish. Soulless. Heart of stone. Too much death. I just don't care.
She thinks she'd go insane if she didn't tell those lies. She thinks she'd probably end up catatonic like Sweets said she should be, if she were normal. What is normal?
These deaths don't bother me. The stench and the flesh and the pain that screams out of the bones until my ears should be bleeding. They don't keep me up, don't give me nightmares. I can handle death. I can deal with it.
And there are a few things she simply cannot accept, because accepting them would mean accepting years of people seeing what she couldn't, and years of strangers telling her what's been right in front of her all along and she just couldn't see it. She's supposed to be intelligent, insightful, so if she can't see it, it must not be there.
I'm not in love with him. I'm not in love with him. I'm not in love with him.
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: David
Spoilers: David trilogy. What's that, #21-23?
Rating: PG
Prompt: Criminals and Crime: Animorphs, David, moral compass that doesn't point north
Growing up with a man who carried guns for a living, David's sense of right and wrong has always been, well, a little off.
His mother says that he's intelligent and he'll do amazing things someday, but she's his mother. She has to say that.
He knows it's true, though. He knows that he's smarter than the kids at every school he's ever gone to and he knows that if he took an IQ test he'd be well above average.
But his conscience, the little voice in the back of his head that tells him what to do - well, it's even smarter than he is. And he knows that, so he does what it says.
His moral compass has never pointed dead north. It wavers, a little to the west, a little to the east.
And then suddenly he's swept up in a whirlpool of crazy, of aliens and Animorphs and things he doesn't understand and when it calms he isn't quite sure where the compass is directing him anymore. It's somewhere in the southwest area, he thinks. But he uses it to find his way because without it David is small and insignificant and stupid, and he won't live like that. Not ever.
On the island at least he's at the top of something. On the island at least he's the smartest, cruelest rat around. Insignificant to the rest of the world, sure - but at least he caused the others pain before he left and at least on the island, he is king.
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Jordan
Spoilers: #54
Rating: PG-13 for language
Prompt: Lies: Animorphs, any of Rachel's family, "Unlike some people, I see her every day."
Jordan is angry at everyone. She's angry at Elfangor for dragging Rachel into this and she's angry at the Yeerks for starting it and she's angry at Jake for sending her sister to die. She's angry at her mother for not noticing sooner and she's angry at herself for not seeing it either. She's angry at anyone who had a hand in Rachel's death.
But most of all she's angry at Tobias. She often imagines what she'll say to him if she ever sees him again, even though she never will.
"Unlike some people," she'll say, "I still see her, all the time. I see her in the people in the grocery store and on the sidewalk and in the hallways at school. I see her everywhere in the people allowed to live their lives and be happy and be free because she died for them. I see her in every blonde head and every show of bravado and every child on a balance beam and every little girl who proudly bears her name. I see her everywhere. Unlike some people, I see her every day. Unlike some people, I can still enjoy the gift she gave to humanity. Unlike some people, I can handle it."
That's what she wants to say, anyway. More likely, if she ever sees him again she'll just tell him to grow a fucking pair.
*
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rory/Amy, Eleven
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Prompt: Renewed: Doctor Who, Rory/Amy, Renewed Vows for their 50th anniversary.
They grow old together after the Doctor leaves them behind.
Oh, they see him again, of course - here and there, he seems to pop in at the most inopportune moments, like the time he materialized right in the middle of Rory's final exams for his MD and brought him back three days later, or when Amy vanished for a week and showed up again just as Rory finished with the endless paperwork for a missing persons report, but that's not important. They've learned to live around it, to build lives of their own up around the fantasies she'd adopted so young. They have a normal life together on top of it all: healthy, happy, and most of all together, which is more than many of the Doctor's previous companions can say, and much more than either one had expected all those years before.
They've even got kids now (and the Doctor was far too excited when he'd found that out - Amy was distraught when she found out that he'd been giving little Isabella fashion tips; the five-year-old had refused to remove the bowtie for a week) and, thankfully, neither one has a time head, three heads, or no head at all.
And fifty years on, well, what's fifty years to a time traveller? But they've been a good fifty years - hell, they've been bloody amazing.
"I do," he says, because even with the gray hair and degraded figure (but don't tell her he said that) she's still beautiful to him.
"I do," she says, because he's still got that same old stupid face and she's still as in love with it (and the man it belongs to) as ever.
They say good-bye again that night, as the Doctor whisks them off on another whirlwind adventure, and fifty years on they're still never too old for running.
---
The next six drabbles are for drabble365days with the claim "Animorphs, Elfangor & family." Assume spoilers for the Andalite Chronicles.
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Years
I have been human for exactly three Earth months and already I am forgetting my Andalite body. What it's like to graze on the fields of the home world and how to run on four legs and the intricacies of tailfighting that took so long to master. How it feels to be in battle, with my hearts thundering in my chest and the awful, awful fear that grips at my mind.
Some things I miss greatly. Others, I don't believe I ever will.
Loren helps as she can but I do not believe she truly understands the gravity of the choice I made by choosing to come to Earth. From birth it is ingrained into the Andalite psyche that all other species are inferior (I have never heard it said outright but it is so deeply pervaded into our culture that most never even realize their prejudice) and that for a member of such a primitive race as humans to even know of our existence is treason punishable by the severing of the offender's tailblade and the subsequent exile as a vecol. (Though of course, I no longer have a tailblade to sever.) In extreme cases it may simply be execution.
Once, while Loren is struggling to grasp the basic concepts of calculus that any Andalite child could recite, she sets down her pencil and reaches for my hand. I startle at the physical contact, still unused to the amount of touch that is commonplace in human societies. It seems to comfort them.
"Elfangor," she says, and I look back at her.
"That is my name," I reply, and she smiles dryly.
"A few more months and you might actually have a sense of humor. Elfangor," she says again, and hesitates. "Where do you see us ten years from now?"
"Ten years is a very long time."
"Ten Earth years," she rectifies.
"Of course." I pause. "I do not know. What is commonplace for human couples of that age?"
"I don't want to know what's common. I want to know where you think we'll be."
"On Earth, most likely. Probably the United States of America. More specific than that it's impossible to say."
"No, I mean--" She sounds frustrated, and I frown. "I mean us. As a couple. Will we still be together? Will we be making a decent living? Family situation, kids?"
"Loren," I say, and take her other hand. "I have given up my life for you. We will always be together. Pieces of cloth with numbers printed on each side hold no interest to me. And I have never considered children but I do believe that this morph is fully functional in that area."
She laughs. "You sound like Data. From Star Trek."
I look at her.
She squeezes my hands and then releases them, instead putting her arms around my neck and shoulders in what I already know to be called a hug. "Never mind," she tells me, and I am very aware of the heat of her bare skin against my throat. "We'll work it out."
"The possibility of children? Or this Star Trek?"
"Both. Either. In fact," she says, taking my hand again and standing up. "I think we can begin working out one of those right now."
*
Rating: PG
Prompt: Appearance
In truth, the morph hardly feels like much of a change. An Andalite's upper body is remarkably similar to that of a human's, and in my mind I was no longer fully Andalite anyway. I no longer wished to be.
But moments after the morph is completed, I begin to get an odd sort of feeling in my abdominal area. Loren tells me they are often referred to as butterflies. My internal clock reminds me exactly how much time is left, exactly how many seconds I have before I can no longer turn back. I have been in space battles and tailfights, and I have felt the hunger of a Taxxon as only my own will kept me from devouring living flesh, but I am nearly certain that I am not brave enough or strong enough to remain in morph for the full two hours. Even for Loren.
Before, I had restrained myself from ever looking at my human morph, but now I find that by examining all the small details of my chosen appearance in a reflective surface that humans refer to as a mirror, I can at least in part forget the deadline now creeping ever closer. From a distance the human's hair (my hair, I remind myself, but even in my own mind it sounds wrong) appears uniformly dark, almost black, but when viewed close up I discover that it is actually made up of many shades of brown and dark red. It's shorter than Loren's hair. Human males often keep their head hair shorter than human females.
The eyes are brown as well, a dark shade that reminds me of the human food that Loren calls chocolate. I understand more of human genetics now, and realize that the color of someone's eyes has nothing to do with age or procreation. The nose is broader than Loren's narrow one, and the skin slightly darker. I notice that the ears are shaped differently than Loren's, and the lips narrower, the jawline squarer, and I marvel at the sheer number of subtle varieties in human appearance. Where just a few months ago I would hardly have been able to tell any two humans apart, I find that I know Loren's features so well that I can detect any sort of variation from them. I have not seen enough of the human population to know the full assortment of human characteristics, but I have seen enough in my attempts to come in contact with some I could acquire to notice many.
I know that Loren is nearby if I should need her, and though I asked her to leave so that I could spend these two hours alone I think that soon my nerve will fail me and I will have to search her out. I had the willpower to resist a Taxxon's hunger but this is something that I will not be able to complete alone.
*
Rating: low PG-13 for blood
Prompt: Mercy
"Don't kill me."
I hesitate, poised above the human (not human, I tell myself, not completely) prostrate on the floor, and my blade raised to strike and sever his head from his body.
"Please, Andalite, don't kill me."
There is no hatred in his voice and it surprises me, to hear a Yeerk say the name of my race without fear or contempt. But this is war and I am a warrior. A lack of conviction on his part will not stop me from doing mine.
"Please."
So why does it?
"There's a human in here, remember? A weak, helpless--" He breaks off, face twisting momentarily. Swallows hard, visibly. "He doesn't want to die."
< Okay, guys, > Prince Jake says. < Let's bail. >
Still I remain frozen, lethal blade glinting over my head. One stalk eye swivels to see Prince Jake slinking towards the door, minus a forepaw and the bottom half of his tail. My other human friends are not far behind.
"Leave me be, Andalite, please."
< Come on, Ax-man. >
The Controller's face twists again and just for a moment, there's a brief change in the eyes: triumph rather than fear. "Do it," he chokes, before the Yeerk regains control.
< Ax! >
"Please, don't."
FWAP!
I trot daintily around the dark crimson pool spreading on the floor and rejoin my comrades outside.
It was a mercy killing.
*
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Touch
On Earth, I quickly grow accustomed to life as a human. Despite the oddity of their society (their ridiculous social formalities continue to confuse me to this day, and I've never been able to make sense of their habit of constantly confining themselves in enclosed spaces for hours at a time) I adapt quickly, even learning to make do with their childishly primitive technology. However, the one thing I have never been able to conform to is their constant use of touch.
Handshakes, embraces, and other such things are an integral part of human culture. Even Loren sometimes forgets, and reaches out a hand to touch my shoulder or arm when I'm not expecting it. (With her, though, I don't really mind.) Brushing shoulders with a stranger on the street is so common they hardly even apologize anymore, although it seems that in simpler times it was considered rude not to excuse oneself. To an Andalite, physical contact with another being is the very height of intimacy, and as much disgust as I have for my people these concepts are rooted so deeply within my psyche that it's not an easy task to dig them out. Loren, however, is determined to try.
"Elfangor," she says (and I smile, for she only uses my full name in privacy), "take my hand." I do, but I shiver involuntarily, because as the great human author called Shakespeare wrote, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. (I often find his language confusing, but no more confusing than modern human society, and inexplicably also quite enjoyable.)
Her other hand drifts, the fingertips brushing the skin at my arm, my shoulder, my cheek. "Okay," she says, calmly, soothingly, as a child might speak to an injured djabala on the homeworld. "That's not so bad, is it?"
"No," I agree. "It was not." For some strange reason I usually don't mind Loren's touch, and in fact I tend to enjoy it. It's only when she takes me by surprise that I find it displeasing.
"Good." There's something different in her expression now, something I am unable to describe or to decipher. "Are you ready to move onto the next step?"
"Yes," I say, though I have no idea what that step might be. To my surprise, she leans forward, pressing her lips softly to the space where my neck meets my shoulder. Again she drifts, up the side of my throat and along my jaw, and I sit very still, unsure what to do. Finally she reaches my mouth, my unfamiliar human mouth, and presses her own lips to mine in what humans describe as a kiss. There's an odd sensation in the place where my legs meet my body, an unknown human reaction I have occasionally felt when watching Loren. It is not displeasing.
She leans back, her eyes gleaming, and smiles uncertainly at me. I reach forward and cup her cheek in one of my large, five-fingered human hands.
"This is an Andalite kiss," I say in my human voice with my human mouth. And I think silently to myself that perhaps this touching thing is not really so bad after all.
*
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Mortally Wounded
It's another skirmish, another battle blazing in the orbit of a primitive planet or moon, with the fight rushing through your veins and the thrill of watching red Dracon beams flash across your hull. (Except this one is different because it's only one more battle but so much more than just another planet.)
Another shot and you tilt, hooves sliding on the metal floor for just a split second before the gravity compensates and stills your momentum. Your reflexes are still perfect, still lightning-fast, except for just a moment you think of your brother falling to Earth in the dome. (And this battle is different again, because now you're hit.)
And the beam breaks through the hull and through your flank and the ship seals itself up before you depressurize but it can't seal you up and you think you've lost consciousness for a moment because the next thing you know your ship is burning up in the atmosphere. (And you've always wanted to come back here someday but this isn't how you wanted it to go.)
And you're falling, falling, and you could morph but you can't get a grip on reality and you can't quite recall how. Someone is screaming, screaming in pain, and you're halfway to the ground before you realize it's you. (You've been hurt before, hurt worse than this, you've been eaten alive and you've been cut open down the middle but this time is different because you can't remember how to morph.)
And that's when you realize: the Time Matrix. You can find it and use it and put things right again, because you realize now that you don't want to die - not yet, Ellimist, don't let you die yet. And you're hurting but you're no longer screaming and the ship can still fly. Not well, but she can fly. And you can't remember how to morph but you can remember where you put it, even after all these years and it's a construction site now where once there was a forest but it must still be there - it must! (You've only used it twice but you realize now how much you've been yearning to dig it up again. That's why you buried it; you knew you would be tempted to use it and now you are.)
It isn't there, but something else is. Something infinitely better - not for you, no, and not for them either, but for the rest of the universe and for the planet you love. The five children, there, and one with Loren's eyes, and you know - you know with the clarity that only comes with imminent death and you remember the timelines you glimpsed so long ago and Aximili falling to Earth and you're dying, you're dying but you don't mind as much now. The boy with Loren's eyes will keep your adopted world safe. (You've never been able to keep it safe before but maybe this time will be different.)
*
Rating: PG-13 for language
Prompt: My Heart Didn’t Break, It Shattered
She fumbles with the key in the lock, nearly dropping it in her haste to get inside. "Elfangor," she calls, the moment the door clicks shut behind her. There's no answer, even though his keys are on the table by the door. "Elfangor?"
Dread building in her gut, she draws up the blinds to check the street. His car is still there, the mustard yellow Mustang identical to the one he drove on the Taxxon home world. And she saw someone at the window when she pulled up. She's sure of it. Positive.
Her heart sinks down to her toes, smashes to pieces on the polished hardwood floor. He's gone, she knows it now. Her impossible alien, gone back into the sky as quickly and as unexpectedly as he had dropped from it years ago. She knew it had to happen sometime. No one escapes a war. (She learned that lesson long ago, when her father came home from Vietnam but never really returned at all.)
Suddenly there's a man before her. She doesn't recognize his face but she knows who he is.
"Ellimist," she says. "You took him."
"I did."
"Bastard."
"It was necessary. As is this. I am truly sorry."
He reaches for her, and in a flash she realizes what's about to happen. A phrase springs unbidden to her mind, a forgotten line from a forgotten poem she heard long ago. Do not go gentle into that good night. Not quite what the author intended, perhaps, but close enough.
"No!" she screams, twisting away from him. He could freeze her in an instant if he liked, could wipe her memories without even restraining her and she'd never know the difference. But he doesn't.
"This is the only choice." Infuriatingly calm, he seems determined to get her consent first. She isn't going to give it.
She releases a stream of expletives, letting know exactly what she thinks of him and possibly adding a few choice words about his mother as well.
"Loren, please." He extends an open palm. An invitation.
"What about my child?" she says suddenly, hoarsely. Her arms cross over her abdomen. "Elfangor's child?"
"He will live," is all he says.
"Doesn't he deserve to know about his father?" she snaps. "Don't do this to him."
"He will know." The Ellimist smiles sadly, mysteriously, back at her, and she realizes that she's crying, tears sketching wet tracks on her cheeks. "He will follow his father's legacy."
She looks down at her still-flat midsection, imagines the child inside growing up to be as extraordinary as the creature that sired him. She squeezes her eyes shut, replaying the memories one last time.
"Okay," she whispers.
Loren opens her eyes to an empty hall. Her cheeks are wet. Why is she crying?
"Loren!" Brian yells from the kitchen. Something smashes. Drunk again. "What the fuck are ya doing out there?"
She rests a palm on her abdomen. Please, please, don't let this baby turn out like his father.
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Jake
Spoilers: None, really
Rating: PG
Prompt: Traps: any, any, “Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them -- this is of the essence of leadership.”
He can see why they picked him, really. He was the only logical, rational, possible choice. Rachel would lead the team into battle without a second thought, charging into even more certain death than he did. Marco would be the opposite, planning too much or just not bothering to go at all, and Cassie would moralize and argue about ethics and they would never get anywhere, and it would kill her, he knows. Ax is a soldier but not a leader, and Tobias, well, once he came into his own, near the end of the war, maybe he could have pulled it off, but at the beginning he would have been too unsure, too willing to let the others make the decisions and unable to stop them squabbling.
Trapped, trapped in decisions and peacemaking, oh God he can't do it.
There's something about Jake - something that the others see within hours of the crash, but something that it takes him three years to see for himself. Something that allows him to utilize the best traits of each of them and cancel out the rest. Hell, he's making it all up as he goes along but he's good at it.
Never wanted this and so many dead, all his fault.
He can see why they made him the leader of their little band. He just isn't sure he'll ever forgive them for it.
*
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Wash/Zoe
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Prompt: Firefly, Zoe/Wash, first date
He'd asked her out a full dozen times. She'd only said no for the first eleven. Progress.
He did his research and landed the Serenity in a port with a nice restaurant. He'd been saving up his pay for months, now. As long as they didn't order expensive wine he should be able to afford it.
Instead they ended up in a shootout with a group of men she had pissed off on her last visit. He got blood on his suit and she tore her dress. It wasn't the romantic evening he was hoping for, but she did kiss him in the kitchen while they reheated leftovers for dinner. It was the best first date he'd ever had.
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Rachel
Spoilers: #54
Rating: PG
Prompt: Author’s choice, any, they’ll never see the likes of you again.
Born December 6, 1985, Rachel Berenson was known as the most aggressive of the Animorphs. Her most frequent morph was a grizzly bear. Tragically, she died during the final battle in an attempt to stop the last of the Yeerk Threat from escaping.
That's all it says. Three years in the fight, boiled down into three sentences in a history textbook for bored kids to doodle on in class. You deserve more. You deserve to be remembered. There's one photograph, one of the only ones that survived, of you standing in front of a pretty mountain with a fake smile plastered to your face for the camera. It's labeled Rachel Berenson, 1985-2001 and someone's drawn in a little handlebar mustache with a Sharpie.
A few years and you're as forgotten as a fashion trend from last decade. When people talk about the Animorphs they say Jake, Marco, Cassie, the bird, the alien, and the blonde chick. You're like an afterthought, only stuck on at the end when they count the list off on their fingers and realize they've forgotten one.
You watch as your memorial statue, at first crowded with a steady stream of grateful worshippers that trickled down to a shrinking pool of sunburned tourists with clicking cameras and crumpled brochures, is now abandoned save for the occasional field trip by a harried teacher and kids packed onto a yellow school bus, all happy to get out of class for the day. They don't care about you, or your sacrifices. You used to be one of them, but it's hard to remember back that far, even though it's not that far back at all.
You can remember visiting the statue dedicated to the general of a war you don't know the name of. It's bronze, gleaming in the sun, and several times life size. He's perched on a horse and you and a friend laugh at the expression on his face. When the teacher shepherds a group of kids off to the restroom, you climb up and shimmy into the saddle behind him. The metal is hot through your jeans and you tell Cassie to dare you to climb up higher. She refuses but you do it anyway, using the statue's bronze musket to give yourself a boost onto his shoulders where you stand, unsupported, the breeze blowing through your hair. You laugh, and don't waver, even when the teacher comes back and yells at you.
And now you're forgotten, another statue to climb on. They'll never see the likes of you again, but they don't know that.
But, you think, watching a girl on a field trip scaling the sun-baked belly of your grizzly statue, maybe someone else can come close.
*
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: River, Amy
SPOILERS: None
Rating: G
Prompt: Doctor Who, River Song & Amy, A cup of tea at the end of the universe
"Hold down that lever."
"Which one, this one?"
"No, two left and one up. Green."
"Can I let go now?"
"Not just yet . . . now."
"Where are we?"
"The end."
"The end of what?"
"The end of the universe."
"How does it end?"
"That's a spoiler. But I've heard they make excellent tea. Cream?"
"Just a sugar, thanks."
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Sara
Spoilers: #54
Rating: low PG-13 for psychological difficulties
Prompt: Lies: Author's choice; author's choice; s/he chooses to believe the lies, because at least they are beautiful.
Sara has seen Death.
Her mother and Jordan have tried to shield her eyes but oh, she has seen Death. She has seen her older sister turn into a bear and create Death. She has seen seven-foot monsters with blades longer than her arms and she has seen giant centipedes with ray guns. She has heard the cries of people who were too far gone to know that they were free of the slug in their heads. Who have forgotten how to move, how to speak, how to think for themselves.
So she knows there is Death. And she knows there is Hell, because her sister has been there. Her sister has been to Hell and has returned, and all of her sister's friends. If it's possible to return from Hell, than it's possible to return from anywhere. It's possible to return from Death.
So while her mother and her father and Jordan grieve for the dead girl in the urn, she remains silent, because her sister has been to Hell and her sister has returned from Hell and her sister can return from Death. Her sister will come back, some day. Sara knows. Sara knows.
And the lies are beautiful.
*
Fandom: Bones
Characters: Brennan(/Booth)
Spoilers: Most of s2 and s3, I think?
Rating: PG
Prompt: Lies: Any, Any, "It's the little lies we tell ourselves that keep us all sane."
My father is being tried for murder, but I can compartmentalize.
For someone who needs the truth, she tells herself far too many lies. White lies, just little ones. She tells them to other people first, but ends up insisting her honesty so vehemently that she begins to believe them herself.
I let Sully go because he wasn't right for me and because I love my work.
Sometimes other people initiate the lies. Someone says something that that she can ignore for the moment but it sticks in her mind, grows and flourishes and keeps her awake at night when she usually isn't sleeping anyway.
I'm a cold fish. Soulless. Heart of stone. Too much death. I just don't care.
She thinks she'd go insane if she didn't tell those lies. She thinks she'd probably end up catatonic like Sweets said she should be, if she were normal. What is normal?
These deaths don't bother me. The stench and the flesh and the pain that screams out of the bones until my ears should be bleeding. They don't keep me up, don't give me nightmares. I can handle death. I can deal with it.
And there are a few things she simply cannot accept, because accepting them would mean accepting years of people seeing what she couldn't, and years of strangers telling her what's been right in front of her all along and she just couldn't see it. She's supposed to be intelligent, insightful, so if she can't see it, it must not be there.
I'm not in love with him. I'm not in love with him. I'm not in love with him.
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: David
Spoilers: David trilogy. What's that, #21-23?
Rating: PG
Prompt: Criminals and Crime: Animorphs, David, moral compass that doesn't point north
Growing up with a man who carried guns for a living, David's sense of right and wrong has always been, well, a little off.
His mother says that he's intelligent and he'll do amazing things someday, but she's his mother. She has to say that.
He knows it's true, though. He knows that he's smarter than the kids at every school he's ever gone to and he knows that if he took an IQ test he'd be well above average.
But his conscience, the little voice in the back of his head that tells him what to do - well, it's even smarter than he is. And he knows that, so he does what it says.
His moral compass has never pointed dead north. It wavers, a little to the west, a little to the east.
And then suddenly he's swept up in a whirlpool of crazy, of aliens and Animorphs and things he doesn't understand and when it calms he isn't quite sure where the compass is directing him anymore. It's somewhere in the southwest area, he thinks. But he uses it to find his way because without it David is small and insignificant and stupid, and he won't live like that. Not ever.
On the island at least he's at the top of something. On the island at least he's the smartest, cruelest rat around. Insignificant to the rest of the world, sure - but at least he caused the others pain before he left and at least on the island, he is king.
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Jordan
Spoilers: #54
Rating: PG-13 for language
Prompt: Lies: Animorphs, any of Rachel's family, "Unlike some people, I see her every day."
Jordan is angry at everyone. She's angry at Elfangor for dragging Rachel into this and she's angry at the Yeerks for starting it and she's angry at Jake for sending her sister to die. She's angry at her mother for not noticing sooner and she's angry at herself for not seeing it either. She's angry at anyone who had a hand in Rachel's death.
But most of all she's angry at Tobias. She often imagines what she'll say to him if she ever sees him again, even though she never will.
"Unlike some people," she'll say, "I still see her, all the time. I see her in the people in the grocery store and on the sidewalk and in the hallways at school. I see her everywhere in the people allowed to live their lives and be happy and be free because she died for them. I see her in every blonde head and every show of bravado and every child on a balance beam and every little girl who proudly bears her name. I see her everywhere. Unlike some people, I see her every day. Unlike some people, I can still enjoy the gift she gave to humanity. Unlike some people, I can handle it."
That's what she wants to say, anyway. More likely, if she ever sees him again she'll just tell him to grow a fucking pair.
*
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rory/Amy, Eleven
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Prompt: Renewed: Doctor Who, Rory/Amy, Renewed Vows for their 50th anniversary.
They grow old together after the Doctor leaves them behind.
Oh, they see him again, of course - here and there, he seems to pop in at the most inopportune moments, like the time he materialized right in the middle of Rory's final exams for his MD and brought him back three days later, or when Amy vanished for a week and showed up again just as Rory finished with the endless paperwork for a missing persons report, but that's not important. They've learned to live around it, to build lives of their own up around the fantasies she'd adopted so young. They have a normal life together on top of it all: healthy, happy, and most of all together, which is more than many of the Doctor's previous companions can say, and much more than either one had expected all those years before.
They've even got kids now (and the Doctor was far too excited when he'd found that out - Amy was distraught when she found out that he'd been giving little Isabella fashion tips; the five-year-old had refused to remove the bowtie for a week) and, thankfully, neither one has a time head, three heads, or no head at all.
And fifty years on, well, what's fifty years to a time traveller? But they've been a good fifty years - hell, they've been bloody amazing.
"I do," he says, because even with the gray hair and degraded figure (but don't tell her he said that) she's still beautiful to him.
"I do," she says, because he's still got that same old stupid face and she's still as in love with it (and the man it belongs to) as ever.
They say good-bye again that night, as the Doctor whisks them off on another whirlwind adventure, and fifty years on they're still never too old for running.
---
The next six drabbles are for drabble365days with the claim "Animorphs, Elfangor & family." Assume spoilers for the Andalite Chronicles.
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Years
I have been human for exactly three Earth months and already I am forgetting my Andalite body. What it's like to graze on the fields of the home world and how to run on four legs and the intricacies of tailfighting that took so long to master. How it feels to be in battle, with my hearts thundering in my chest and the awful, awful fear that grips at my mind.
Some things I miss greatly. Others, I don't believe I ever will.
Loren helps as she can but I do not believe she truly understands the gravity of the choice I made by choosing to come to Earth. From birth it is ingrained into the Andalite psyche that all other species are inferior (I have never heard it said outright but it is so deeply pervaded into our culture that most never even realize their prejudice) and that for a member of such a primitive race as humans to even know of our existence is treason punishable by the severing of the offender's tailblade and the subsequent exile as a vecol. (Though of course, I no longer have a tailblade to sever.) In extreme cases it may simply be execution.
Once, while Loren is struggling to grasp the basic concepts of calculus that any Andalite child could recite, she sets down her pencil and reaches for my hand. I startle at the physical contact, still unused to the amount of touch that is commonplace in human societies. It seems to comfort them.
"Elfangor," she says, and I look back at her.
"That is my name," I reply, and she smiles dryly.
"A few more months and you might actually have a sense of humor. Elfangor," she says again, and hesitates. "Where do you see us ten years from now?"
"Ten years is a very long time."
"Ten Earth years," she rectifies.
"Of course." I pause. "I do not know. What is commonplace for human couples of that age?"
"I don't want to know what's common. I want to know where you think we'll be."
"On Earth, most likely. Probably the United States of America. More specific than that it's impossible to say."
"No, I mean--" She sounds frustrated, and I frown. "I mean us. As a couple. Will we still be together? Will we be making a decent living? Family situation, kids?"
"Loren," I say, and take her other hand. "I have given up my life for you. We will always be together. Pieces of cloth with numbers printed on each side hold no interest to me. And I have never considered children but I do believe that this morph is fully functional in that area."
She laughs. "You sound like Data. From Star Trek."
I look at her.
She squeezes my hands and then releases them, instead putting her arms around my neck and shoulders in what I already know to be called a hug. "Never mind," she tells me, and I am very aware of the heat of her bare skin against my throat. "We'll work it out."
"The possibility of children? Or this Star Trek?"
"Both. Either. In fact," she says, taking my hand again and standing up. "I think we can begin working out one of those right now."
*
Rating: PG
Prompt: Appearance
In truth, the morph hardly feels like much of a change. An Andalite's upper body is remarkably similar to that of a human's, and in my mind I was no longer fully Andalite anyway. I no longer wished to be.
But moments after the morph is completed, I begin to get an odd sort of feeling in my abdominal area. Loren tells me they are often referred to as butterflies. My internal clock reminds me exactly how much time is left, exactly how many seconds I have before I can no longer turn back. I have been in space battles and tailfights, and I have felt the hunger of a Taxxon as only my own will kept me from devouring living flesh, but I am nearly certain that I am not brave enough or strong enough to remain in morph for the full two hours. Even for Loren.
Before, I had restrained myself from ever looking at my human morph, but now I find that by examining all the small details of my chosen appearance in a reflective surface that humans refer to as a mirror, I can at least in part forget the deadline now creeping ever closer. From a distance the human's hair (my hair, I remind myself, but even in my own mind it sounds wrong) appears uniformly dark, almost black, but when viewed close up I discover that it is actually made up of many shades of brown and dark red. It's shorter than Loren's hair. Human males often keep their head hair shorter than human females.
The eyes are brown as well, a dark shade that reminds me of the human food that Loren calls chocolate. I understand more of human genetics now, and realize that the color of someone's eyes has nothing to do with age or procreation. The nose is broader than Loren's narrow one, and the skin slightly darker. I notice that the ears are shaped differently than Loren's, and the lips narrower, the jawline squarer, and I marvel at the sheer number of subtle varieties in human appearance. Where just a few months ago I would hardly have been able to tell any two humans apart, I find that I know Loren's features so well that I can detect any sort of variation from them. I have not seen enough of the human population to know the full assortment of human characteristics, but I have seen enough in my attempts to come in contact with some I could acquire to notice many.
I know that Loren is nearby if I should need her, and though I asked her to leave so that I could spend these two hours alone I think that soon my nerve will fail me and I will have to search her out. I had the willpower to resist a Taxxon's hunger but this is something that I will not be able to complete alone.
*
Rating: low PG-13 for blood
Prompt: Mercy
"Don't kill me."
I hesitate, poised above the human (not human, I tell myself, not completely) prostrate on the floor, and my blade raised to strike and sever his head from his body.
"Please, Andalite, don't kill me."
There is no hatred in his voice and it surprises me, to hear a Yeerk say the name of my race without fear or contempt. But this is war and I am a warrior. A lack of conviction on his part will not stop me from doing mine.
"Please."
So why does it?
"There's a human in here, remember? A weak, helpless--" He breaks off, face twisting momentarily. Swallows hard, visibly. "He doesn't want to die."
< Okay, guys, > Prince Jake says. < Let's bail. >
Still I remain frozen, lethal blade glinting over my head. One stalk eye swivels to see Prince Jake slinking towards the door, minus a forepaw and the bottom half of his tail. My other human friends are not far behind.
"Leave me be, Andalite, please."
< Come on, Ax-man. >
The Controller's face twists again and just for a moment, there's a brief change in the eyes: triumph rather than fear. "Do it," he chokes, before the Yeerk regains control.
< Ax! >
"Please, don't."
FWAP!
I trot daintily around the dark crimson pool spreading on the floor and rejoin my comrades outside.
It was a mercy killing.
*
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Touch
On Earth, I quickly grow accustomed to life as a human. Despite the oddity of their society (their ridiculous social formalities continue to confuse me to this day, and I've never been able to make sense of their habit of constantly confining themselves in enclosed spaces for hours at a time) I adapt quickly, even learning to make do with their childishly primitive technology. However, the one thing I have never been able to conform to is their constant use of touch.
Handshakes, embraces, and other such things are an integral part of human culture. Even Loren sometimes forgets, and reaches out a hand to touch my shoulder or arm when I'm not expecting it. (With her, though, I don't really mind.) Brushing shoulders with a stranger on the street is so common they hardly even apologize anymore, although it seems that in simpler times it was considered rude not to excuse oneself. To an Andalite, physical contact with another being is the very height of intimacy, and as much disgust as I have for my people these concepts are rooted so deeply within my psyche that it's not an easy task to dig them out. Loren, however, is determined to try.
"Elfangor," she says (and I smile, for she only uses my full name in privacy), "take my hand." I do, but I shiver involuntarily, because as the great human author called Shakespeare wrote, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. (I often find his language confusing, but no more confusing than modern human society, and inexplicably also quite enjoyable.)
Her other hand drifts, the fingertips brushing the skin at my arm, my shoulder, my cheek. "Okay," she says, calmly, soothingly, as a child might speak to an injured djabala on the homeworld. "That's not so bad, is it?"
"No," I agree. "It was not." For some strange reason I usually don't mind Loren's touch, and in fact I tend to enjoy it. It's only when she takes me by surprise that I find it displeasing.
"Good." There's something different in her expression now, something I am unable to describe or to decipher. "Are you ready to move onto the next step?"
"Yes," I say, though I have no idea what that step might be. To my surprise, she leans forward, pressing her lips softly to the space where my neck meets my shoulder. Again she drifts, up the side of my throat and along my jaw, and I sit very still, unsure what to do. Finally she reaches my mouth, my unfamiliar human mouth, and presses her own lips to mine in what humans describe as a kiss. There's an odd sensation in the place where my legs meet my body, an unknown human reaction I have occasionally felt when watching Loren. It is not displeasing.
She leans back, her eyes gleaming, and smiles uncertainly at me. I reach forward and cup her cheek in one of my large, five-fingered human hands.
"This is an Andalite kiss," I say in my human voice with my human mouth. And I think silently to myself that perhaps this touching thing is not really so bad after all.
*
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Mortally Wounded
It's another skirmish, another battle blazing in the orbit of a primitive planet or moon, with the fight rushing through your veins and the thrill of watching red Dracon beams flash across your hull. (Except this one is different because it's only one more battle but so much more than just another planet.)
Another shot and you tilt, hooves sliding on the metal floor for just a split second before the gravity compensates and stills your momentum. Your reflexes are still perfect, still lightning-fast, except for just a moment you think of your brother falling to Earth in the dome. (And this battle is different again, because now you're hit.)
And the beam breaks through the hull and through your flank and the ship seals itself up before you depressurize but it can't seal you up and you think you've lost consciousness for a moment because the next thing you know your ship is burning up in the atmosphere. (And you've always wanted to come back here someday but this isn't how you wanted it to go.)
And you're falling, falling, and you could morph but you can't get a grip on reality and you can't quite recall how. Someone is screaming, screaming in pain, and you're halfway to the ground before you realize it's you. (You've been hurt before, hurt worse than this, you've been eaten alive and you've been cut open down the middle but this time is different because you can't remember how to morph.)
And that's when you realize: the Time Matrix. You can find it and use it and put things right again, because you realize now that you don't want to die - not yet, Ellimist, don't let you die yet. And you're hurting but you're no longer screaming and the ship can still fly. Not well, but she can fly. And you can't remember how to morph but you can remember where you put it, even after all these years and it's a construction site now where once there was a forest but it must still be there - it must! (You've only used it twice but you realize now how much you've been yearning to dig it up again. That's why you buried it; you knew you would be tempted to use it and now you are.)
It isn't there, but something else is. Something infinitely better - not for you, no, and not for them either, but for the rest of the universe and for the planet you love. The five children, there, and one with Loren's eyes, and you know - you know with the clarity that only comes with imminent death and you remember the timelines you glimpsed so long ago and Aximili falling to Earth and you're dying, you're dying but you don't mind as much now. The boy with Loren's eyes will keep your adopted world safe. (You've never been able to keep it safe before but maybe this time will be different.)
*
Rating: PG-13 for language
Prompt: My Heart Didn’t Break, It Shattered
She fumbles with the key in the lock, nearly dropping it in her haste to get inside. "Elfangor," she calls, the moment the door clicks shut behind her. There's no answer, even though his keys are on the table by the door. "Elfangor?"
Dread building in her gut, she draws up the blinds to check the street. His car is still there, the mustard yellow Mustang identical to the one he drove on the Taxxon home world. And she saw someone at the window when she pulled up. She's sure of it. Positive.
Her heart sinks down to her toes, smashes to pieces on the polished hardwood floor. He's gone, she knows it now. Her impossible alien, gone back into the sky as quickly and as unexpectedly as he had dropped from it years ago. She knew it had to happen sometime. No one escapes a war. (She learned that lesson long ago, when her father came home from Vietnam but never really returned at all.)
Suddenly there's a man before her. She doesn't recognize his face but she knows who he is.
"Ellimist," she says. "You took him."
"I did."
"Bastard."
"It was necessary. As is this. I am truly sorry."
He reaches for her, and in a flash she realizes what's about to happen. A phrase springs unbidden to her mind, a forgotten line from a forgotten poem she heard long ago. Do not go gentle into that good night. Not quite what the author intended, perhaps, but close enough.
"No!" she screams, twisting away from him. He could freeze her in an instant if he liked, could wipe her memories without even restraining her and she'd never know the difference. But he doesn't.
"This is the only choice." Infuriatingly calm, he seems determined to get her consent first. She isn't going to give it.
She releases a stream of expletives, letting know exactly what she thinks of him and possibly adding a few choice words about his mother as well.
"Loren, please." He extends an open palm. An invitation.
"What about my child?" she says suddenly, hoarsely. Her arms cross over her abdomen. "Elfangor's child?"
"He will live," is all he says.
"Doesn't he deserve to know about his father?" she snaps. "Don't do this to him."
"He will know." The Ellimist smiles sadly, mysteriously, back at her, and she realizes that she's crying, tears sketching wet tracks on her cheeks. "He will follow his father's legacy."
She looks down at her still-flat midsection, imagines the child inside growing up to be as extraordinary as the creature that sired him. She squeezes her eyes shut, replaying the memories one last time.
"Okay," she whispers.
Loren opens her eyes to an empty hall. Her cheeks are wet. Why is she crying?
"Loren!" Brian yells from the kitchen. Something smashes. Drunk again. "What the fuck are ya doing out there?"
She rests a palm on her abdomen. Please, please, don't let this baby turn out like his father.